And now for some short snappers . . .

Back when I was a kid in Nova Scotia, there was a show on TV called Reach for the Top.

In it, teams of four high school kids — undeniably geeks — would appear in jackets and ties or fine Sunday-best dresses and answer questions in a game-show format. The winning school was allowed to send its hockey team over to the losing school to beat up nerds. Or something.

The show always ended with what they called “Short Snappers” — hey, no jokes from the peanut gallery — in which a series of short questions were asked and answered in rapid fire fashion.

And with all that in mind, today’s format is short snappers. Or, tiny items that hope to grow up and be full blog items someday on their own.

If you go into the woods today . . .

I saw this item on Inside Halton the other morning while riding into Toronto about bear sightings in the Milton area. Bear sightings in people’s back yards.

I don’t think it’s all that unusual for bears to be seen in Escarpment country, but I’m not all that interested in having any in my yard. We have enough wildlife as it is. I practically trip over rabbits in the morning when I go out for the paper and that’s not much of an exaggeration. And the infestation of coyotes around Oakville is well documented. Perhaps they are following the rabbits, which I would imagine are a good food supply. And then of course there are the racoons, skunks and sundry other varmints.

But bears?

Hell of a forechecker. But can he sing?

Tags

hockey, Justin Bieber, Mothers Day

We had a really nice Mother’s Day at our house and I hope you all did, too.

Laura got home from a weekend conference at about 6p Saturday night and I had done some experimenting in the kitchen to create a new marinade for chicken breasts. The consensus was it needed more garlic.

I’m kidding. If it had any more garlic I would have triggered a protest on the street by People for the Ethical Treatment of Vampires. The chicken was in a thick, air-tight sealed bad in the fridge all day and you could still smell the garlic through the plastic. That said, the chicken was very good once it was barbecued (and yes, the old flame-thrower is still in service).

Dorval Raceway, remarkable moms

Daytona. Indianapolis. Talladega. Bristol.

Auto racing fans will recognize these as some of the most famous and iconic race tracks in North America, where drivers with nerves of steel career through traffic in supercharged steel machines, jockeying for any advantage to get to the front and stay there.

We have the same thing in Oakville. It’s called The Race to the QEW on Dorval Drive.

The action that I witness pretty much every day starts at the stop lights at the intersection of Dorval and North Service Road. In the right lane, cars line up and other than the first two in line, the others don’t generally pretend to be heirs to the legend of Ricky Bobby.

Broiler pan blues: a day in the life

How many times have you cleaned a broiler pan at your house, and, how many times have you hated it?

For me the answers are a) lots and b) every time.

I’m not sure I can build an entire blog entry around my lingering, timeless hatred for the broiler pan, but I think I’m going to try. And to be clear I am not for one second suggesting that I am the only person in the house who cleans the broiler pan. But a careful analysis of the statistics would show that when it comes to cleaning broiler pans, I am the Wayne Gretzky of broiled grease removal practices.

Last night was a particularly trying evening, before I even got to the broiler pan.

Going out in a blaze of glory. Literally.

It was a pretty good weekend, all in all.

What with the hockey tournament and the barbeque melting last night.  You just don’t see stuff like that every day.

I’ll recap the tournament, for those of you who don’t follow my exploits on Twitter.
The throw-together team Pad played on in the College Cup prospect event won twice on Friday and then lost game three Saturday. So, they had to win their remaining game Saturday night vs. Wisconsin to advance to Sunday, and they did.
In the round of 16 on Sunday morning they beat another American side, the Midwest Selects to earn a spot in the quarter finals.

Playing on only an hour’s rest, the guys played great for the first half of the game and then ran out of gas, losing 4-0. My kid got thrown out of the game with 1:12 left for a hit from behind which a) he was guilty of and b) appalled all the people around me who didn’t know he was my kid.

So we were back home by 1p and I was in a grocery store by 130p. The afternoon was largely spent in the lazy pursuit of not very much. I asked the boys what the wanted for dinner and naturally Pad said “steak” so last night I fired up the grill.
Literally, as it turned out.

Prospecting

What are your prospects? Are you a prospect? Or are you a prospector, prospecting?

The tournament that Pad is playing in this weekend is interesting to watch unfold. It’s called the College Cup and run by a group called Prospects Hockey. The idea is that teams of kids play in one place all weekend, the scouts from major junior, junior A, CIS and NCAA come and watch and maybe uncover a prospect or two.

Not unlike taking your prize ox to the fair.

One good call on a busy night

Well, I made one good call last night.
It had already been a long day. I’m usually at my desk before 8a and last night it was 7:15p when I got home. Laura was out to dinner with her curling team, Chris was gone for three hours (it turned out to be three and a half) of lacrosse timekeeping.
My simple mission was to feed Pad.

No Canada! (sing along with me …)

It is obvious to all but I will point out, now that we are well into the 2nd round of the NHL playoffs, that no Canadian-based team will win the cup again this year.
Children who were born on or about the time of that last victory — by the Montreal Canadiens — will be turning 19 this year. They are, in the vernacular of minor hockey, 1993s.
My older kid is one of them.
The 1993 Stanley Cup final came within a whisker of being one for the ages, except for Kerry Fraser and his too-perfect hair and less-than-perfect eyesight, the Leafs might have beaten Los Angeles and made it to the finals to play Montreal.
But I’m not bitter. (Anyone have a Tic Tac?)

A picture’s worth …

A rare second post in one day. But I was flipping through the pictures on my iPad and came across one that made me smile.
Laura has been saying for years that I should do a post about our refrigerator.
She’s right.
I realize that the fridge in most homes becomes the community bulletin board. But whenever we have people over ours inevitably is a show stopper.